Introduction

Glaettli Design Direction specializes in creative direction, design consulting and design managementfor Japanese manufacturers and international companies and organisations. We advise manufacturers on how to use their particular skills and technical know-how to successfully position themselves in new markets by means of a new generation of products. We direct the creation of new brands and coordinate the development of new products and product line-ups, drawing on an extensive network of international designers and creators. We support our clients to establish and promote new brands and products on the national and international market and to develop suitable international sales systems.
We coordinate and supervise the entire process, from the first meeting, the selection and briefing of designers, the product development to the presentation on international trade fairs.

Our aim is to link the excellence of Japanese craftsmanship with the talent of the most promising international designers by developing new generations of innovative, commercially successful products.
Our aim is to build bridges, commercially and culturally, between Japan and the West and look for new expressions for the profound know-how of Japanese craftsmanship.

Profile – David Glaettli

After interdisciplinary studies of art, mass communication and Japanese language, David Glaettli (*1977, Zurich, Switzerland) was trained in industrial design in Milan, Italy and Lausanne, Switzerland where he graduated from ECAL (University of Art and Design Lausanne).
He worked in the fields of product design and interior styling in Zurich, before moving to Japan in 2008. In Osaka he joined the design studio of Teruhiro Yanagihara as associate designer and design director. In 2013, he founded his studio Glaettli Design Direction in a historic Japanese townhouse in Kyoto.
David Glaettli is assigned the creative director of the furniture brand Karimoku New Standard and design director of the ceramics project 2016/ (twenty-sixteen) in Arita by the Saga prefectural government. In 2015 Glaettli Design Direction Ltd. was registered as public limited company. Since july 2016, Glaettli Design Direction Ltd. is based in Meguro, Tokyo.